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I have personally seen the video which is quite nauseating, but I wonder if these actions truly reflect the power and potential of social media. Are we going to form blood-thirsty internet lynch mobs whenever a video of some idiot being cruel to an animal appears on the radar? Are we going to use such a powerful medium to simply get angry about these isolated incidents and point our fingers at these seemingly disturbed individuals?

The truth is, animal cruelty has been happening every day on a mass scale right under our noses for decades, and we have been looking the other way. How can we point the finger when most of our chicken and eggs come from battery farms, where the hens are force fed and stacked on top of each other in cramped cages, unable to move? How can we justify calling someone out for abandoning a cat in a dumpster when many, if not most of the clothes we wear are the result of (human) slave labor? Maybe if we saw some footage of a taskmaster beating a pregnant factory worker or a child assembling a pair of Nikes we might have a change of heart!

Most of the problem results from the fact that we are so disconnected from the products we purchase and consume because they come from “somewhere else,” out of sight and out of mind. Social media is the perfect tool to show where our products are coming from, and instead of getting angry at a mentally disturbed individual, we can get angry about a corporation’s lack of social responsibility (or praise a corporation for complying with fair trade practices). We’re much better off uploading videos that show the conditions of factories, battery farms, circuses, sweatshops, etc., and using social media in an attempt to change hearts and minds, and create positive and effective social change – only then will the true power of social media be released.

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Technorati Tags: animal cruelty, battery farm, drowning, puppies, river, social change, Social Media, social responsibility, sweatshop

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CA Bill says it’s illegal to impersonate – California recently passed a bill that makes it illegal to impersonate someone else on the web – and this means person or corporation. While instances like the whole Phoebe Price bullying case, would make me want to agree with this bill. What happened to freedom of speech?

Fingerprints at the Gym – An article in DailyFinance talked about a gym in the Silicon Valley installing fingerprint scanners at their front desk – as part of their national cardless check-in program. So gym-goers will scan their right and left index finders and the machine would keep in on file. The article brings up a good point, identity theft is already a problem but at least you can get a new account number. You can’t get a new fingerprint. Would you scan your print so you didn’t have to remember your card?

What to Consider when Creating a Business Logo – A mashable article talked about the 4 key things to consider when creating a logo and these included: Make sure your logo gives a good impression, Make your logo “sticky” – meaning non-changing, Find a great designer and introduce yourself into the social marketplace. I think this article brought up a good point – logos really need a good first impression. If it doesn’t look good, your audience will likely look elsewhere. And, secondly – introduce yourself to the social sphere, but think about where you want to go. Don’t spread yourself too thin. You want to make sure you have a plan as to what you want to accomplish and then proceed to do so.

Firefox 4’s Beta 4: Hello, Sync and Panorama – Mozilla just released its beta version of Firefox 4 which includes 2 features: Panorama and Sync. Panorama is a visual tool that allows you to see all of your open tabs in a group. It has a drag and drop interface so you can more easily manage them. Which is helpful for the tab-fiends. The Sync allows users to synchronize all their bookmarks, history, passwords, etc. across multiple computers. What are your thoughts on these new features

Could ‘Social Network’ hurt Facebook? – There’s a film coming out in October called “The Social Network” that is supposed to be about Mark Zuckerberg and how facebook was created. Apparently Zuckerberg didn’t have anything to do with the film and the film casts him in some bad light. If true, do you think this is going to effect how people will think of facebook?

Lindsay Lohan’s Potential New Radio Gig – Lindsay Lohan just got out of rehab and there is talk of her calling the East Coast home again. A radio show in Long Island is now offering her and her mother Dina $1M to host the morning radio show and talk fashion, tips, etc. Do you want tips from Lindsay

The Most Dangerous Celebrities to Google – McAfee recently put out a top 10 list of the most dangerous celebrities to Google. The Top 3 being Jessica Biel at 3, Julia Roberts at #2 and Cameron Diaz being the top dangerous celebrity. According to McAfee, the risk is greater when you include “nake” or “nude,” which isn’t really surprising. This really just goes back to the fact that you have to be careful what you click on, whether it’s a link that was sent to you or on Google.

The 15 Most Bedbug-Infested Cities in the US- There was a recent study of the top 15 bedbug-infested cities in the US and Boston came out as number 11. Gross! What are your thoughts on this epidemic?

Lastly, this week we are starting a PRobecast PR Power Ranking – which we go around the room and everyone votes on what story did the best job PR-wise. This week’s winner is Terminix who released the study on the top bedbug-infested cities. Not only does this story have the “yuck” – it also grabbed a lot of attention.

So, Congratulations, Terminix!

Hope you enjoyed PRobecast, Topaz Partners’ loosely edited weekly podcast!

Let us know what your thoughts are on these matters!

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Technorati Tags: bedbugs, Facebook, free speech, Lindsay Lohan, Terminix

On one of our trips there, the bartender, Rick, was talking about Pandora. Hearing half of the conversation, my friend raised her wrist saying, “I have a Pandora.” Well, Rick wasn’t talking about the bracelet, he was talking about Pandora Radio. (On a side note, four of us at the bar had Motorola DROIDs, which is where the conversation spawned from.)

This got me thinking…

It’s essential to market your brand very carefully when a company has the same – or a similar name – as another brand, or you could cause a brand identity crisis.

While this was just the case of not hearing the brand Pandora in the right context, if not branded correctly, you could be sending your customers on a wild goose chase – causing them a lot of aggravation on the way.

Creating your company’s URL with the exact company could divert some of the confusion. Let’s take the above situation as an example: if you type in Pandora.com and you are looking for Pandora jewelry, you will be directed to Pandora Radio. Which would be a problem, if I was looking for Pandora Jewelry.

So what if you can’t brand a company’s URL to the exact name? Make sure your customers – or future customers – are aware of your actual homepage link when you market yourself. Try and get your link as similar as possible to your company name. Or, in the very least make sure your URL is easy to remember!

For example, I heard a radio ad for Volvo on the way to work today. They were advertising New England Volvo retailers and made sure to let listeners know that their website was http://www.nevolvo.com. Note the N-E to make sure listeners didn’t just visit the general Volvo site.

How’s your URL branded? Is it your company name? Something similar?

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Technorati Tags: Branding, Pandora, URLs, Volvo

Example A: Philadelphia (can’t you just feel the brotherly love?) has decided to charge bloggers an annual $300 fee for the right to blog. Of course they are calling it a ‘business privilege’ tax, but you just have to love the free-speech aspects of this move. If you’ve ever lived in Philly you already know there’s a tax on everything – head taxes, work taxes, township taxes and more. But taxing the right to exercise freedom of speech – in the city where the Constitution was penned and adopted by the Constitutional Convention – boggles the mind. Someone ring the Liberty Bell, quick.

Example B: California (uber alles – we’ll have that Jello Biafra test later) has passed a bill to make it illegal to impersonate someone on the Web. So much for Fake Steve and other parodies. All that’s needed now is the Governator’s signature and we’ll all be safe in the ether again. While we can see why it’s good to discourage mean girls and other pranksters who see the Internet as a great place to stage attacks on others, we agree with the Electronic Frontier Foundation – there’s way too much opportunity in this bill to squelch freedom of speech.

Example C: Two airports – Logan and Las Vegas – have approved full-palm patdowns of air passengers going through the already slow and invasive security checkpoints. It’s not enough to take off your shoes and get a full-body scan that’s as strong as a CAT scan. Now you get to be up close and really personal with a TSA agent, probably that guy or gal you refused to go out with in high school. So much for personal space. Assault, anyone?

Example D: A Connecticut high school – in swish New Canaan, no less – is considering adding RFID tags to student IDs. No more sneaking out of study hall for a quick trip to McDonalds, kids.

So what does all of this have to do with tech PR? The RFID tags are a tech story, and a pretty convoluted one – a Connecticut RFID company is pushing the plan after applying for a National Science Foundation grant to ‘conduct scientific research.’ Line the kiddies up, we’re all friends here, and while you’re at it, how about a quick cheek swab? The pat-downs are a study in how proven and legitimate technologies such as explosives sniffers and scanner technologies are being ignored. The blog tax is something that affects anyone who blogs – and there’s the fact that taxing speech really pushes the limits of a government’s right to collect revenue from its citizens. And the e-impersonations? Again, free speech is at issue.

Any attack on free speech, constitutionally-protected personal freedoms and human dignity is an issue for all of us. For PR people, it means we need to do a better job explaining the technologies our clients create – those airport scanners, for example. We need to give our clients better advice – that Westport, CT company needed to be talked off the cliff by a smart PR strategist.

And we need to be better citizens. We need to have, and give, some respect.

What do you think?

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A recent blog post by Paul Gillin, General Mills’ Blogger Relations Program Follows the Golden Rule, provides great insights into how General Mills has built strong relationships with online influencers by being good listeners and sharers. The entire blog post is a must read, but take a look at this excerpt: “General Mills doesn’t treat its online influencers like the media. The relationship is closer to a friendship than a business exchange. ‘When you have great news, who do you tell after your family? You tell your friends, of course,’ he says. ‘That’s the philosophy we try to engender.’” (Quotes are from David Witt Lillien, General Mills’ PR manager.)

Another example comes directly from one of our clients, Eversave.com. Eversave recently launched online daily sites in Boston, Philadelphia, Austin, Baltimore and Columbus, OH. Many more cities are soon to follow and Eversave has wisely started building relationships with online influencers in their target markets. Cheryl Harrison, a blogger and social media expert based in Columbus, published a post on her Being Cheryl blog about online daily deal and group buying sites and mentioned Eversave. Her post included GroupOn, an Eversave competitor, in the headline and refers to GroupOn a number of times with only a brief mention of Eversave. Nonetheless, a member of Eversave’s social media team called Cheryl and left her a phone message, thanking her for mentioning Eversave. She also posted a thank you message on Cheryl’s blog. Cheryl responded by publishing a follow up post – Blogger Outreach: The Power of Saying “Thank You” - in which she commended Eversave for reaching out and thanking her, including the phone message and the email “thank you” in the post as best practices examples of how companies and vendors should work with online influencers.

We’re constantly advising our clients to take such an approach – engaging an audience through social media is more than just broadcasting. You need to follow the golden rule and listen – and practice common courtesy basics like sharing and saying, “Thank You.”

As Paul Gillen and Cheryl Harrison both point out – it doesn’t take a lot of money or a huge investment of time. You just need to pay attention, participate in the conversation, have fun and mind your manners!

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For a quick background, the most popular female radio talk show host Laura Schlessinger, more commonly known as Dr. Laura, has a worldwide syndicated conservative talk show which features political and social monologues, as well as an advice show.

Dr. Laura recently raised eyebrows and temperatures from her listeners and critics when she used a racial slur towards a caller no less than eleven times. In an interview with Larry King this week, she remained stoic in her right to free speech and her desire to say what she believes is right and helpful to her listeners.

Her show will end this December, but she assured Larry King that she was not retiring and not quitting her radio show; Dr. Laura will still display her views on her blog, YouTube, and books. Even though Dr. Laura insisted she wasn’t quitting, she later apologized for her words.

Now, I like free speech as much as the next girl, but the FCC exists for a reason. While blogs are great for discussion, knowledge and conversation about any topic, it seems common sense to not to choose words that are considered crude and offensive to a majority of the planet.

I sort of think of this situation as being on an email list, or following someone on Twitter. Here’s why. When someone’s spamming you with either too much information or unhelpful information, you tend to unsubscribe or unfollow. However, when someone gives a little or just the right amount of information, you keep listening just out of habit. I think that if Dr. Laura hadn’t gone so Howard Stern-extreme, she would still be on the air, pushing the envelope with her peers Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

Also similar to her peers, Dr. Laura’s conservative and controversial views on other sensitive topics led to the cancellation of a TV show ten years ago. But, you be the judge.

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Social Media Revolutionizing Business/Customer Relationships – In this economy, most businesses – in all industries – have changed their business models. The “social media revolution” that has happened really force businesses to take a step back and see not only who their messages are going to – but the need to analyze what kinds of messages they are sending. While you can promote your business (sell) via these online channels, you also need to offer information of value – so you giving your audience information they want so they’ll continue to look at you favorably.

The Future of Public Relations and Social Media – Mashable recently ran an article discussing how social media is changing the face of PR. Press releases are now incorporating a social element with more links, video and audio – making these releases more interactive and interesting to editors. Even social media platforms in general have changed the way PR pros are “doing” PR – offering new platforms for PR pros to reach out to journalists, etc. While, we are embracing social media the best we can, we should also expect to see adaptations to these platforms to make using social media even easier. This would include, finding the right audiences easier, knowing what data to accept or reject, more aggregation, etc. What do you foresee changing social media-wise?

The Facebook ‘Dislike Button’ is a Scam – If you’ve recently seen in your friends’ status’ that they have a “dislike” button – do not click through. It’s the latest Facebook scam and it’s spreading rapidly. If you do click though and follow the installation process, you grant the app permission and it’ll run the same status on your page – and it could be charging you.

Is the Buick the Fastest Growing Car Brand in America? – Buick recently has changed their design and marketing plans shifting to focus their efforts on a new younger audience. Incorporating new social media strategies and with the launched of momentoftruth.com, Buick is really stepping up and trying to step back from the “grandfather car” image it previously had. In doing so, General Motors Co. sold 137% more Buicks in July of 2010 than it did in July of 2009. What do you think of this recent marketing shift?

JetBlue Passenger Goes Whacky, Causes Plane to be Diverted – Just after last week’s JetBlue flight attendant incident, an incident occurred on the other end of the spectrum – the passenger. A passenger was having an “anxiety attack” and started acting out, hitting and even spitting on a flight attendant. She had to be tied down to a seat until she was calm. What a month JetBlue is having!

What are your thoughts on this week’s topics?

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Technorati Tags: Buick, Facebook, JetBlue, Social Media

Of course as time has gone on, and the media landscape has vastly changed, Paine’s measurement models have modified as well.

Paine’s blogged about her latest measurement ideas a few weeks ago when she unveiled a new term she coined as “revenuetionships”.

As she puts it , social media requires that organizations measure not just volume, dollars and cents, but the quality and value delivered by their relationships.

The same hit you got for your client ten or more years ago isn’t the same as today at all. The social context of what your client/your company is doing is of extreme importance.

I saw the beginnings of this back in my days at Cone, when a presentation was given to Dunkin Donuts. This was really the beginning of the internet (around 1996). My boss at the time, Mike Lawrence, provided a terrific overview of what was great about the internet…and potentially not so great.

Like a fake Dunkin site the execs in the meeting were (I think) totally unaware of. Or very anti-corporation sites that people were exploring with, i.e. BankofAmericaSucks.com (not sure if this still exists or not today – it may just be a Facebook page.)

This was of course a huge eye opening experience for these executives. And that was before blogs!

At Paine says, it’s extremely important for organizations to factor relationships and reputation into their metrics now, and as she said “Boycotts and bans can be started with a few key strokes. Rather than leading to a sale, that direct mail piece or email blast that used to sell product, may actually deter people from buying your product because it isn’t eco friendly, or becomes the butt of a joke, or is linked to a cause people don’t believe in.”

It can be scary stuff, but if your social media program is well thought out, and handled by the right organization, your company will be in a much stronger position.

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